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WORKING WITH MICHENER

The Making of The Covenant

©2007 Errol Lincoln Uys

 

Errol Lincoln Uys and James A. Michener

 

an online literary archive

 The Assignment|The Plotting|The Research|The Manuscript

All materials are from my personal archives, unless indicated otherwise. No items may be reproduced without permission.

Web site illustrations added to material.

 

The Research

 

“I'm working diligently on my reading, trying to get things organized in the abstract, for I have left my planning book at home, not wishing to risk either losing it or subjecting it to prying eyes,” Jim Michener wrote from Honolulu two weeks after we ended our initial brainstorming sessions in May 1978.

 

Michener loaned dozens of books from my library and tackled them with gusto. A few illuminating critiques of South African works read in the early stages of his research:

 

Wright's Burden of the Present is carefully written, makes a few good points worth remembering, and suffers grievously from not having included Afrikaans historian ... sort of like Hamlet without the prince. I found his final chapter quite pompous and self-evident: Historians should be good historians.”

 

Parker and Pfukani's high school text (History of Southern Africa) is a splendid modern summary, almost good enough for college freshmen. Devoutly one wishes it were obligatory study for students across the Republic of South Africa. (I was amused to see that the authors, like all sensible men who know their material, I should judge, come to the same organizing conclusion that we did: follow the Dutch to Piet Retief; double back to pick up the Zulu; move forward with the Trek. I wish I were working those three chapters right now.) But even this book lacks the bite which would come in showing the Dutch actually acquiring their historic attitudes.”

 

Prinsloo of Prinsloosdorp (by Douglas Blackburn, a rare work of fiction Michener read while researching the novel) is one of those haughty frolics that every nation should produce in every century. It reminds me of Tomas Roucault's (sic, Raucat) Honorable Picnic about Japan, and some Englishman's Haji Baba about Persia. But I was surprised at how little additional material Blackburn adds to what one already knows if he's done considerable background study. I like his sparing but effective use of Afrikaans words and judge that each writer ought to select a few crisp ones essential to his narrative and forego the rest. But I don't think they should be given in italic. In fact, I think our list should go even further and indicate with an asterisk those Afrikaans words which have already passed into our big English dictionaries as English words. What ones they are I don't know but would guess veld, laager, trek but not sjambok, Nachtmaal, or Rooinek.

 

Becker's Tribe to Township is much too episodic for my present needs: I want distillations of encyclopedia articles! But it is perceptive, and when one is finished one has a heavy feeling regarding the impossible burdens placed upon the men and women making the transition.

 

Jim spent a month in South Africa seven years earlier, producing his New York Times article on the Five Warring Tribes, but the vast project now in mind made it imperative that he return and trek to the settings we envisaged for the novel. Between May and November 1978, his busy schedule included trips from Maryland to Honolulu, New York to Poland and London, Philadelphia to China, plus weeks spent shooting a TV series on Sports in America. – The weeks between July 9 to August 19, 1978 were kept open for a research trip in Africa.

 

I'd left my post as editor-in-chief of Reader's Digest in Cape Town the year before and moved to the U.S. with my family. I could've gone back as Jim's guide but decided instead to assign a local editor and writer as his leg man. Philip Bateman had been on my staff at the Digest and was then working as a freelancer; he'd shown a flair for history in articles I commissioned him to write for the magazine. His assignment would be two-fold: to accompany Michener on his tour and later to act as my main contact in South Africa for fact-checking and ongoing research.

 

The draft itinerary I suggested to Bateman embodies the kind of foot-slogging that's key to mastering a subject as vast as South Africa – or Brazil, for that matter. (See Brazil: The Making of a Novel, The Journey.)

 

June 1, 1978 – Letter to Philip Bateman

Draft Itinerary for James A. Michener

Let's assume that you have been able to establish a "holding pattern" for your other obligations during the time of his visit. Here are some rough suggestions for an itinerary:

 

July 10 – 14      Johannesburg

 

July 15 – 22      Cape Town

 

July 23 – Aug 5   Land trip from Cape Town to "Eastern Frontier," following historical line of progress of white settlement and Xhosa movement; then through Eastern Cape up to the Orange Free State, tracing The Great Trek route and taking in Kimberley, Magersfontein and other Boer War highlights.

 

Aug 6 – Aug 12    Pretoria… Voortrekker Monument Museum etc. and up to the Northern Transvaal border. Depending on the security situation – it would have to be very 'secure' – hop to Zimbabwe Ruin would be valuable. Return to Johannesburg via the south-eastern Transvaal. Particular interest in the Hendrina, Lake Chrissie, Vaal source area.

 

August 12 – 19    Johannesburg

 

Your core period of involvement would be July 23 to August 12, when you're on the road with Jim Michener. It would be valuable if you were able to meet him in Johannesburg and see him set up for the first few days there. At that stage, the "research" accent should be on material on the land and its early evolutionary processes: Museum of Science and Man, Boshier, Tobias, Dart, Peter Becker etc. Also contact with De Beers and an   expert an diamonds; he's looking for good, sound material on the creation, location and incidence of diamonds. Perhaps, too, if there is such a person up there, contact with Johannesburg or Pretoria expert on Zimbabwe and the Rozwi. And the Vaal ...I've strong feelings about its value as a sort of River of Man, a primeval source of the veld's earliest dwellers. And a side excursion to the Africana Museum? To sum up: At this opening stage, it's anthropology, geology, the 'living veld' of old that we're interested in.

 

To Cape Town: Remember, what we're seeking to capture on this 'safari' is depth, authenticity, mood, atmosphere, color. Above all, quality. (Both in material and people consulted.) We'd start with the Van Riebeeck era, the Castle. Contact with the experts on the Bush people. (That excellent display at the Museum). Groot Constantia: Obviously a visit with the curator or someone who really knows and loves the place and can show and tell about it in substance. Now we are following the expansion of the early settlement to the Drakenstein Valley. I'd like him to have the opportunity to overnight in a genuine Cape Dutch farm, to experience what it was like there. To Franschoek and the Huguenots; to Stellenbosch.

 

Then, toward the interior. On the trip to the frontier, special interest places to be seen from an historical perspective would be Swellendam, Somerset East, Cradock, Grahamstown, The Great Fish, Slagter's Nek. You want to really feel as if you're carrying kruithorings (powder horns,) rattling sabres, lumbering along with creaking wagon. It's important that he meet real people, see real places. Spend time in a small country town meeting with local Afrikaners, farmers, true descendents of the 1820 settlers. Stay in ordinary country hotels where he can sound out the locals. I often feel that on these 'discovery of South Africa' – or any place for that matter – trips, people don't get a chance to touch basics but are propelled from one know-it-all to the next in glassed-in splendor. That's not what Jim Michener wants! He'd far prefer to sit with coffee and rusks in a Swellendam voorkamer than some plastic palace.

 

Also on the Eastern Frontier, a visit to one of the English (LMS)   mission stations. Through the Free State to Winburg and later the Boer War sites with special interest in Kimberly and Magersfontein. Also in the Transvaal, Waterval Bo-and-Onder where Kruger took leave of his forces to exile. And, again, a DRC mission station, preferably with school attached.

 

While the above reflects, with the exception of Zimbabwe and the Bush, a tracing of the white man's paths there will also be great interest in the coloured people and blacks with emphasis on the Xhosa of the Eastern Province border war area and in the Transvaal, close to Natal, the Zulu. But Jim Michener will be better able to detail to you his needs in that area.

 

At this stage, we'd welcome your thoughts on a draft itinerary, balanced to offer a broad perspective on history and, time allowing, a decent portioning between 'looking' and talking. It should set a reasonable, not exhaustive pace. Jim Michener would like to go about his work in a quiet, well-ordered manner. Just the two of you in many instances, ferreting out material and experiencing some of the places mentioned above. And undoubtedly other important stops you'd suggest. This is primarily a non-socializing visit. I know that he doesn't want one of those hour-by-hour VIP bashes, but would much prefer to set his own pace in line with your suggestions. I have spent some time with Jim Michener and can assure you a rare and rewarding experience with so fine and thoughtful a person.

 

Bateman followed these guidelines in setting up an itinerary and interviews over the five weeks. The busy schedule brought a private note from Jim's secretary, Nadia Orapchuck: “A word of caution ...Mr. Michener is 71 years old and had a heart attack about twelve years ago. He is a vigorous man, walks about three miles a day, plays tennis and we all have difficulty keeping up with him. But it is important that some time be set aside for a nap each afternoon, wherever possible, particularly in high altitude areas.”

 

Michener and Bateman covered nine thousand kilometers and conducted 100 formal and informal interviews. Each day Philip gave Jim a folder with photocopied articles and background information on the day's activities, locations, interview candidates.

 

Bateman Research Folders

Bateman Research Folders

MICHENER DAY 4

Johhanesburg, Simmer and Jack, Historical Society

Photocopies

H. V. Morton,   In Search of South Africa, 308-312

Lantern,    Survey of Johannesburg Fort, Dec 1966

Lantern, Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Dec 1957

    SESA, Gold  Fields of Soiuth Africa, Johannesburg

    Star, Camping  Place of Stone Age Man, 10, 1972

The trip went off without a hitch, including a dash up to the ruins at Zimbabwe, driving hell for leather to catch up with an armed convoy on a road under siege in the guerilla war then raging in the former Rhodesia.  

In his letters from South Africa, Jim remained upbeat about the course set for the novel.

Cape Town

19 July 1978

... I have encountered nothing so far to divert me from the general outline we speculated upon in Maryland and suppose, from this halfway point that I will not come upon any real disturbances. What I am finding is a wealth of supportive material on the topics germane up to this point, and suppose that I will continue to do so for the rest of the trip and for the rest of the outline. In other words, it stands pretty much as devised, and there are practically no blind spots upon which we fail to get the information we need. (You will understand, of course, that we have touched upon only some of the topics, but they do cover, many of the toughest problems, so there is reason to expect similar reinforcements all the way along.)

I do not yet have a clear picture of how the English settlers fit into the total picture, but I am sure that will fall into place once we get down to it. Right now, they appear so interesting in England that I may leave them there and tell the reader to fit them in as he or she sees fit!

 

At any rate, the work goes famously and by the time we finish I'll have correspondents in every corner of the republic. I can hardly wait to get back to Maryland to start serious work with Errol, and on my own.

 

 

Jim also offered asides on current Southern African events:

 

“Every time a Rhodesian village is exterminated, and especially when the victims are white, the South Africans do their best to be polite to visitors and refrain from making any obvious remarks. But these things are having a profound influence, and one would really like to know if Andy Young, who is not stupid, could be onto something when he makes his wild accusations. At any rate, it ain't dull over here, not when prisoners constantly jump out of windows to escape interrogation, and when clergymen flee to escape strange laws.”

 

Graaff-Reinet(Cape Province)

27 July 1978

So far as the proposed outline goes, all is falling into place. I'm glad I didn't bring the actual outline with me, because it's better for me to think about people and places in larger frameworks, and allow the story to germinate on its own, but the main lines seem to hold fast. I am working hard on the English family and judge that I now have a workable solution. I am happier than ever that I am not focusing on gold, diamonds, Uitlanders or Jameson and feel quite sure that I'll adhere to that. But next week we head to Natal and I may have to do some serious rethinking of that problem.

 

My hope that we could travel incognito proved fatuous. Wherever we stop the press of the locality seeks us out, and the newspapers from afar track us down. I am asked three times a day to put the blast on Jimmy Carter and Andy Young but beg off on the grounds that to do otherwise would be improper. And twice a day I am asked to put the blast on Vorster (Prime Minister, John Vorster) and his cabinet, and again I beg off on the grounds that the Logan Act forbids this sort of thing.

 

Zimbabwe Ruins

8 August 1978

At the deluxe hotel serving Zimbabwe, they don't fool around. Next to the menu in each room they have a little tray containing four free tablets of Philips Milk of Magnesia...

 

All aspects of the book have now been investigated except the actual scene of the farm, and Australopithecus; we'll deal with the latter soon. I am ready to type out the first four chapters and the last three. But what happens in between remains uncertain. This obscurity is only because I haven't come to any kind of grips with the characters or the sequences. I think a few days concentrated with Errol on this, reviewing earlier decisions and fitting them in, ought to provide a fairly clear concept. At least I'm not worried...

 

We've had endless discussions with some very opinionated people, and I at least know where South Africa is. A great verkrampte (conservative) yesterday said that he thought it would be all right if the English stayed, providing they learned Afrikaans, closed their universities, sought no appointments to the armed services, tried to place no one in the cabinet, and kept their mouths shut. When I pointed out that they were citizens too, my advisor replied, ‘Not Really.'

But the place is glorious to see; people live extremely well; blacks have it much better than in Zambia for the time being; and only God would dare predict the future. It's a subject for a powerful book, and I at least know the opening sentences for each of the chapters. The filling in? Now that's another matter. But we do have those complimentary Milk of Magnesia tablets.

 

Middelburg, Transvaal

11 August 1978

As we approach the end of our long and arduous trip I have been trying to think of whom in South Africa you might have found to do the job better than Philip Bateman has done it, and I conclude there could have been no one. He is a brilliant man, witty, well-informed, of good disposition and amazing capacity to keep things moving forward.

 

Our side trip to Rhodesia was most disturbing. About 500 miles in a strict military convoy with numerous conversations with people who feel that the end of the world is at hand. The killing goes on day after day; people live within wire fences; no termination is in sight; and after Independence on January 1 all on hand predict an even worse situation, with various black groups fighting for control of what is a glorious hunk of real estate. I've had by accident deep conversations with four groups who have fled Zambia, and they report that it is in total chaos... almost unmanageable. (There were five groups, come to think of it, and all reasonably sane.) Tony (Oursler) might consider an article on what happens when a country turns back the clock; I have reason to believe it's quite horrendous, and there seems a strong possibility that Rhodesia will go the same way...

 

I seem to have accomplished all I set out to do, plus scads of additional bits which will fit into the big picture. I come home with an immense amount of work to be done over the next two working years, but I think I see a clear way in which it can be done. The good feeling is that many persons who hear of the project say that they wish it were completed now. This augers well for the timeliness and the gravity; it would be most appropriate if it were in print right now, but I suspect it will be just as timely when and if it finally does appear.

 

Back in St. Michaels on August 23, Michener wrote a final note on the trip: “Philip Bateman was perfect for the job and he arranged extraordinary meetings. I accomplished all I had hoped, and he is to be commended.

 

“He did not however, for reasons which I am not sure I understand, arrange any meetings with blacks, and this is a significant gap which must be filled by you drawing upon such black South Africans as may be in New York, or with whites sympathetic to their cause and well informed. (I met many blacks in 1971 and have met others in London, so I am not barren; but this is not good enough for a book of this nature.)"

 

I'd spoken with Bateman by phone before giving him the Michener assignment, mentioning a need for such interviews but saying that I wouldn't make any reference to this in written communications with him. In retrospect, I was probably being over-cautious but given the existing climate in South Africa with BOSS (Bureau of State Security) looking over everyone's shoulder, I didn't want to see Jim denied a visa that at the time he'd yet to apply for. Even he had been uncertain as to whether he'd get permission to visit the country: “I can see reasons why they might not issue me one, and reasons why they might.But I am so deeply involved with this project, and so convinced that I can do a first rate and needed job that I propose to go ahead, whether the South African government grants the visa or not; which means that you two gentlemen (Oursler and me) ought to consider how we might operate in the event that I have to do all my work from America.”

 

In 2001, when Dr. Barbara Helly was preparing her doctoral thesis on The Covenant, she asked Bateman about this omission and received an email with this explanation which appears in her thesis:

Why didn't he get to meet many blacks? This is an interesting one! The question is not why I didn't organize more black people for him to meet but why he did not get to meet many.

Here are the reasons:

Time. The programme was very tight – very compressed. We had only a matter of weeks to cover the whole country – both geographically and in terms of history – and all the other disciplines he was covering.

Experts. We had to concentrate on experts in each field. For historical reasons there were at the time very few black academics and an insignificant number – arguably none — in any of the fields he was working in. (Oddly enough the same statement would apply today, but slightly less so.)

Rejection by Adam Small. I tried to make an interview with the so-called “coloured” academic and poet Adam Small. I had great difficulty with this and he in fact turned me down. This was extraordinary considering he was one of the most outspoken people in ‘struggle' politics. He would have been an ideal person for Michener to meet. I was very disappointed over this.

Credo Mutwa. He did a tour of Soweto and met a leading black businessman as well as the fascinating Zulu witchdoctor Credo Mutwa. This was admittedly a brief visit, At the time he was famous for having been the only black to have written about black history. Michener was given his book of course. He was also taken to Crossroads, the squatter camp outside Cape Town to meet some ordinary black people.

No agenda. There was no ‘agenda' or underhand purpose in this. It was simply the way things happened. Had we had three months we might have met more black people but, as I've said, the vast majority of information comes from white academic sources. I don't think we could have done it any other way considering the immense time limitations.

I don't believe there was deliberate bias. We were simply practical.

Philip Bateman e-mail to Barbara Helly, April 2 2001, quoted in Dr. Helly's thesis "The Covenant, de James A Michener, un roman populaire américain sur l'histoire l'Afrique du Sud," Universite Rennes II -Haute Bretagne.

 

At the time, I was less concerned about this omission than Michener for my own background more than fulfilled his criteria as a white sympathetic to the struggle of South Africa's blacks. In fact, I'd already had my own misgivings about the representation of blacks in the novel which I set out in a note to Jim following our first meeting on September 9, after his return from South Africa.

 

I really think the in-depth black interviews are vital... At present the core of the book seems heavily weighted toward the Van Doorns and the Saltwoods, and the interplay between them and the Nxumalos is still very sketchy. Hopefully, the missionary—black effort will afford opportunity toward rectifying this. Still, when I look at the family trees of Van Doorn/Saltwood – against the Nxumalo one in my rough working notes – I have this sense of inadequacy.

 

Somehow, I have a feeling that what one needs do is to put aside the Van Doorns and Saltwoods and 'think' black. In other words, with all the material at one's disposal plus whatever interviews can be got, to project the entire story through the Nxumalo family. I'd be happier, for example, if I had a 30-page “rough working” synopsis on exactly the same era, placings, etc. as what now exists but concentrating solely on the black family. Then, take that and fit it against the overall Plan…

 

It wouldn't change it and much would be unsaid but it would bring the balance needed. We know, for example, how the Van Doorns and Saltwoods think, how they react to the great and s smaller events around them, how their opinions are shaped and their actions determined. We seem to be able to get inside them. I don't think this is yet the case with the Nxumalos who often seem to be on the periphery rather than – even if silent, watchful observers – in the main arena.

 

If you think I have a point here, it will probably be important that we start resolving this soon. I believe that with intelligent reading of material available and detailed interviews with as many reliable sources here, much could be achieved.

 

Considering the emphasis likely to be placed on South Africa's blacks at the time when the book appears, I think it will be very important to have it all in the right proportion.

 

That September meeting was important in taking stock of our progress and plans for realization of the novel, as well as deciding on specific research projects I was to undertake. My notes from the meeting provide a distillation of our ongoing working process, items like “Sable antelope,” “de-landed Boer,” “Trek,essentially flash cards that point to subject areas I was to delve into.

 

ELU NOTES : With Jim Michener/ September 9, 1978

 

Six chapters to be completed first:

 

1. Creation and the Diamond

 

2. Australopithecus – Antecedent of his? Relationship: Gracilus/Robustus?

 

3. The Bushman

 

13. Education of a Puritan

 

14. Apartheid

 

15. Contemporary Scene.

 

 

*Sable antelope: Life pattern...leit motif among animals

The Great Hunt

Rape of the Veld: "De-animalization" – how this took place

 

*De-landed” Boer, 1922 etc. Perhaps through Detleef's growing up/reflections etc.

 

*Dutch Reformed Church split, Holland etc. 1978/79?

 

*"Had lived for 00? years before any member of the family saw a black man. And 00? years until actual contact with blacks”

*End of Boer section reference to fact that no universities had been established. In Peru and USA colleges soon after settlement. These were to provide a 'leadership group.' In Southern Africa, the settlement was controlled by a commercial company with its own interests in mind. It concerned itself with commerce. Analogy between the two. Not to have had this germinal material? Their (the Boers) university was a university of the Bible. It did produce a more homogenous people – but narrow-visioned

 

*Trianon First Van Doorn estate near Stellenbosch with view of the Mountain. Van Doorn dies, leaves young widow. She marries French Huguenot...She buries him...That ends Huguenot section.

*The Kraal 1810-1836, near Webster, closer to Grahamstown than Graaff Reinet and within distance of Slagtersnek. Makes it a 'fortress'. But it is devastated by everybody and finally burned in 1834. And some of his best blacks killed. And Hottentots. Says to hell with it...

Nachtmaal in Graaff Reinet/ Musters in Grahamstown. (Riebeek Oos?)

Black Circuit—Slagtersnek… Thaba Nchu… Natal… Vrymeer…Pretoria 1899

 

* Venlo five miles north-east of Hendrina

 

* Spioen Kop Buller. Comic counterfoil to de Groot

 

* Baines SA/Aussie.

 

* Black Muslim movement in Soweto?

 

 

•  Sable

•  University

•  Huguenot pro rata contribution. Present evaluation?

•  Old Sarum

•  Spioen Kop

•  Blood River and Covenant

•  Buller

•  Trek... American, Russian, Nguni, Boer. Mystical value to direction in traveling. Russian to rising sun… American to setting sun. Evaluation of historical, emotional and numerical importance.

 

“Thought God obligated to accept their covenant even though it abused rights of people He thought as much of.”

 

In New York, I met two black exiles from South Africa, who accepted an invitation to spend a weekend in October with Michener and me at St. Michaels: David Sibeko, the “Malcolm X of South Africa,” and Bernard Magubane, a professor of anthropology at New York University. In the 1960s Sibeko worked for Drum magazine, the rambunctious parent of Post newspapers, before running afoul of the South African government and being thrown into jail. Tried and acquitted of sabotage, he fled the country and became a leader of the Pan African Congress (PAC)in exile, its permanent observer at the United Nations. Sibeko was a charming passionate man devoted to freeing his people and it was sad to read less than a year later that he was assassinated on a street in Dar-Es-Salaam.

 

Those three days in October were as illuminating for me as for Jim. ”It all goes somewhere deep inside to join with a personal sense of tragedy, of frustration, of impatience – and perhaps a silent guilt at not having done more than one did,” I wrote afterwards in a note to Michener. “One is not naïve: the path that they see leading them to victory is, ultimately, a harsh, violent way. Perhaps there is still a five year period of grace in which to talk, but it seems clear that by then the burden of the past will overtake present conciliation.”

 

Michener and I agreed on the appointment of a second legman in Cape Town, specifically to work on apartheid and black issues. Roger Kenyon, my deputy editor at Reader's Digest who'd also become a freelancer, did excellent work ferreting out material for the apartheid chapter, digging up records of some of the most egregious cases of discrimination and racism.


The in-depth research for The Covenant covered three distinct phases:

Primary

Michener's ongoing and intensive reading and his information-gathering in South Africa was supplemented by my research on special topics as with the examples from my September 9 note(above.)

 

In addition to these broad backgrounders, Jim began his draft by writing several crucial passages for the book. These key paragraphs were given to me for detailed analysis.

 

Expert Readers

As the draft manuscript emerged, copies were sent to Philip Bateman for submission to expert readers in South Africa. These went out with a covering note from Michener:

TO ALL READERS

This manuscript is being submitted to you in hopes that you will give it your most careful attention. Absolutely everything is up for review: the data from your field of expertise; the language; the customs; the inferences; and above all any general facts which might be in error.

 

I would appreciate your guidance on even the most minute points, as I always strive to avoid ridiculous error.

 

A good way to submit your comment is to correct on the page any small item. On larger items, or those deserving an essay-type observation, it is good to mark the offending passage in the left-hand margin with an Arabic 1, 2, 3 etc. not necessarily in order, but starting with 1 on each new page. Then at your typewriter, indicate 1-3 which means Page 1, Item 3, and go ahead.

 

Thank you for your assistance.

 

                    James A. Michener

 

Fifteen draft chapters were sent to twenty-two South African experts, except sections dealing with apartheid which Michener and I kept close to our chests. Bateman also added his comments to six of the fifteen chapters, as well as continuing his role as our legman, providing excellent background material from the South African National Library and his own extensive historical collection.

Major critique

Jim wrote his first draft of The Covenant over eleven months between October 1978 and August 1979, sending me the original chapters as he finished them. Except for my initial comments on key paragraphs, he let me know that he wouldn't concern himself with my criticisms and suggestions until the manuscript was complete.

 

This is, of course, exactly how a writer should forge ahead with a rough draft and avoid the danger of being bogged down by revisions.

 

I did a line-by-line check of the manuscript, plus a broad critique of each chapter to point out any major difficulties in the flavor and thrust of the text. My commentaries frequently ran at greater length than Michener's drafts and went into far more depth than the expert overviews. The South African readers' comments, as well as Bateman's suggested corrections on selected chapters, were incorporated with my reports.

My exhaustive and painstaking research reflected a personal obligation to get the South African story right at a critical point in the history of my birthplace. I'd been a writer and editor in South Africa for close on fifteen years and all too often saw the facts about our past and present totally distorted, especially by outsiders.

 

I also knew that when the time came to review the rough draft, I would be sitting opposite James. A. Michener, a giant of American letters. If I was going to challenge Jim's words and opinions, and toss out chunks of his work, I had to be ready for the skirmishes and the bigger battles sure to follow.

Of course, I kept in mind that Michener wasn't writing a history, as he pointed out in a note before we began our work on the manuscript: “It is important for me and everyone to remember that I am writing a novel and have no obligation to cover all developments, and none at all unless they coincide with my purpose and send forward my narrative.”

 

These three examples show the extensive historical research behind a novel like The Covenant, or as the adage says, the ninety percent perspiration and ten percent inspiration of genius.

 

Primary Research

 

One of the first drafts Michener sent me for research was a comparison of the continents and their relationship to the various settler groups who landed there:

As the Dutchmen from the Cape took their first hesitant steps eastward and northward into the great continent at whose edge they perched, it would be profitable to inspect what kind of land they had inherited and to realize how limited and hostile it was. Settlement could not be extended to the northwest, for there lay the Namibian Desert, a cruel boundary, and it would be difficult to penetrate the vast region of the northeast, because this contained the Kalahari, less formidable than the Namibian, but also a desert. To the east and northeast ran the towering Drakensberg Mountains, many of the peaks over ten thousand feet high, protected by precipitous valleys almost impassable.

 

But the wasteland of Australia, the Rocky Mountains of North America, and the blizzard weather of Siberia proved no natural impediment could stop men from moving outward if they were determined to go. And in time the adventurous Cape Dutch would conquer their Kalahari and Drakensberg. What really set limits to their population and their economic growth was not the formidable land to the north but the missing land to the south...  Click to read more

 

 

Pleasantville, New York

November 21, 1978

Dear Jim,

Herewith another batch of comments, thoughts, notes etc. on the theme “The Promised Land – Limited or Horizonless?” It also looks at the question of the vanishing wildlife and the changes that came to the wilderness with the advent of the plough, the gun, barbed wire

 

Of course, viewed in the broad context your comparisons with other continents are fine: I just have this nagging doubt about some of the specific statements that emerge…the limited natural endowment etc. The Namib, the Kalahari were indeed there. Yet, far greater, was the extent of the Living Veld – the Eden so many early travelers speak of.

 

So, I offer these notes from numerous sources for your consideration.

A personal note: I'll be away December 9-17 learning something of America! Digest editors are allowed a one-week educational trip anywhere in the country. I've chosen Muncie, Indiana – Middletown, USA! It should give me a good chance to sound out the grassroots level of life here.

Errol

 

 

The Promised Land – Limited or Horizonless?

ELU Research Report, November 21, 1978

(from numerous sources; illustrations added to web site)

 

 

In a broad “sub-continental” sense, the “limits of expansion” comparison is acceptable. I'm certain you've already considered many of the comments that follow: They're of a qualifying rather than definitive revision nature. (Certainly, I begin to grasp the broader Michener vision of things and am cautious about dismantling what is essentially an enlightened, fresh perspective.)

 

But what worried me on successive readings of the section were some of the descriptions of the land the Dutchmen inherited: Limited and hostile; one of the world's deprived areas; the wealth which had been created in the vast temperate zones of the continents could no be duplicated in South Africa; no matter how diligently the Dutch worked, working always with a limited endowment; but did transform these deficiencies into assets. Hostile, challenging, demanding... Yes. Limited — ?

 

(What follows will also cover your query about the vanishing wildlife.)

 

An initial approach would be to try and draw a picture of what the veld looked like when those early pioneers arrived. The work of botanist John Acocks gives us a clue. His veld maps show, for example, extent of the lush, sweet grassveld in 1400 and in 1954:

Botanical map by John Acocks shows estimated extent of sweet grassveld in year 1400

Map of sweet grassveld areas today tells a sad story of  the advance of the desert

 

 

Once the sweet grasslands billowed all the way from Somerset East to Bethal. Many of the first missionaries, travelers and hunters have told how they found millions of head of game grazing up to their bellies in the grass that grew tall when the rains were good, or how the animals Living Veld South Africatrekked, driven by the hunger madness in the great droughts when the grass did not become lush and green.

 

Through the ages the grass roots helped by the cold nights and warm days and the heavy thunderstorms also “made” the soil of this plateau, which lies between 4,500 to 6,000 feet above the sea. Here Nature ‘farmed' with her wild animals and 150 species of grasses of the region. Then men came – killed the game with guns, grazed the grasses with cattle and sheep, and ploughed the soil that was mostly sandy or sandy loam. In the lands where maize grew, the soil lost the structure of crumbs given to it by the roots of the grasses and it became so sandy that it was easily washed away by water or carried by the strong winter winds. The cattle grazed far and wide and ate only the most palatable grasses so that their place was taken by harder type. The veld was also kept short by the sheep and the good grasses did not come into seed.

 

The second map shows the small patch of sweet grassveld left today. The place of this grassveld, which is disappearing just like the herds of game, is being taken by the Karoo type and behind this again comes the desert. At the present rate of advance the Karoo will have reached the Vaal River and the desert will be as far as Bloemfontein in 50 years time. Then we will probably have a little sweet grassveld left in the black turf soils around Standerton and Bethal.

  • “The fairest Cape the Dutch moved into had more than 2,000 different flowering plants, 170 grasses and 240 rush-like plants between Table Mountain and Cape Point – more flowering plants than in the British Isles.”

Landing of Van Riebeeck 1652, Charles Bell

South African National Library

 

  • “Some scientists believe that a great part of the eastern side of South Africa was still solid forest only 500 years ago. They think all Natal, for instance, was forest from the Drakensberg to the sea... moist evergreen forest with huge trees and dryer forest with smaller trees in the valleys. Then the Bantu entered the country with their huts built of clay-covered poles made from young trees and their stock. In time of drought, their fires killed large stretches of forest, letting in the grasslands we see today. White settlers arrived and chopped out most of the remaining forests for firewood, furniture, houses, wagons and even ships. Today, few countries in the world have as little forest left as South Africa.”

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Chapter Overview

The Trekboers

(from numerous sources; illustrations added to web site)

 

This example of my broad commentary on Michener's draft covers Chapter V of The Covenant, The Trekboers, nomadic pastoralists who were the forerunners of the Voortrekkers, the Dutch pioneers who forsook the Cape Colony and trekked north in the 1830s.

 

 

Karoo Trekboer, by Charles Bell

 

      Trekboers – Chapter V11 1 – 139     ELU/October 1979                                   

 

Specific comments appear on text pages

General Overview for discussion at revision stage:

 

The picture given of a trekboer (most sources use lower case 't') – “wandering farmers who carelessly tilled a piece of land for nine or ten years, then abandoned it for a better piece of new land forty miles farther east... they practiced the most abusive type of agriculture" – misses important aspects of the trekboer phenomena.

 

The trekboers were nomadic pastoralists; what land they 'tilled' was usually for their private needs and minimal. Some pointers from Keppel-Jones:

 

Three groups of colonists we are concerned with:

 •  Inhabitants of Cape Town – townsmen (as distinct from Compagnie officials)

 •  Settled wheat and vine farmers – stable and fairly civilized

 •  Pastoralists of the interior – veeboere i.e. trekboers

 

"Life on the cattle posts had great attraction for young men. It was a life of adventure, of brushes with San and Khoikhoi, of plunder perhaps, of release from the trammel of civilization.

 

"Newer farmers were to a large extent the old farmers sons and ticket-of—leave soldiers accustomed to frontier life. Pastoralist was not tied to one spot. Families in the snow covered Roggeveld or Nieuwveld Mountains trekked down in winter and spring to the Karoo plains and returned to the high altitudes before heat and drought of summer. Children who had been rocked to sleep by the jolting of the wagon grew up with the thought of migrating to the north or east to find homes for themselves. The trekboer had adapted himself to the pace of the ox.”

 

Important to consider the term the trekboer moved into with his cattle and sheep. Monica Cole has, for example, a chart of drought stricken areas in 1926-39. Aside from the southwestern Cape and an area encompassing the fertile Garden Route, rest of province was declared drought-stricken for 30 to 60 months, and a major portion -­typical trekboer territory – for 60 months and over.

 

South Africa is periodically affected by severe and prolonged droughts. The rainless years of the 30's culminated in the disastrous year of 33/34 when stock losses ran into the millions. The bane of the farmers is the country's unreliable and unpredictable rainfall. Over much of the country large fluctuations are the rule rather than the exception. Years with a below average figure are more common than years with an above-average rainfall.

The habit of trekking was thus not simply tied to wasteful ruination of the veld, but a necessity dictated by weather and water availability. A trekboer may have had a 'base' – for the long period Hendrik has – but at very regular intervals he would have had to move his animals to more supportive pastures. Also, while the 'smoke from another man's chimney,' might be symbolic of encroachment, a more important motive was to keep away from Compagnie rule – to savor the independent, untrammeled existence offered by the beckoning wilderness.

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Chapter Line-by-Line Review

Chapter VII, The Voortrekkers

(from numerous sources; illustrations added to web site)

 

In my overview of The Voortrekker draft, I commented:

“Not one of characters, Tjaart Van Doorn, Naude, Bronk, Nel etc. even suggest picture of ‘frontier Boer' – i.e. the wilder, independent, hard as nails individual. What we have is picture that evokes American Centennial-type character + the Pennsylvania Dutch.

 

Unsettling frontier element isn't there, the balance between Bible-living Van Doorns and wild renegade types, which if time allowed, I'd show in 50/50 proportion, is lacking.

We have a stylized Afrikaner-heroic interpretation = Good enough for the past and Nathan (Manfred Nathan, The Voortrekkers of South Africa, 1937) but inadequate for 1980.

In addition, we have scant reference to the dominant issue then and now, i.e. LABOR.

Sure, one might argue that the American reader only needs simplistic view. But it's wrong to offer it this simply. It just wasn't so.”

Voortrekkers Satour, reproduced in Reader's Digest Illustrated Guide to Southern Africa

 

My line-by-line comments on the vital Voortrekker chapter comprised fifty pages plus numerous side notes. Here is a sampling from the first seven pages of my report.

 

The Voortrekkers - Chapter X               ELU/ October 1979

 

 

Since the story of the Voortrekkers is regarded as the central point in the story of the Afrikaners, it would seem essential that one offers an account that remains as faithful to history as possible. There are many problems in this chapter, and for this reason it is preferable to deal with them at length.

 

( 1.1. The first figure is the page number/second is comment reference number)

( C - comment only/ not indicative of an inaccuracy)

 

1.1.C. The Voortrekkers

The word only came into use 40 years after The Great Trek. Originally, they called themselves 'emigrants'.

 

1.2. In 1833 Tjaart van Doorn was about as happy as a man could be.

 

Until now, the Van Doorn family have been at the forefront of the movements that have led to the development of a) free burghers b) trekboers and, consequently, the 'Voortrekkers"… In the middle of 1834: the three 'Commissie Treks' – Uys/Johannes Pretorius/Scholtz – set out to investigate lands to the north. This was virtually the final step before the Great Trek. So that, aside from the possible respite offered by Cole and d'Urban's actions (below), minds were made up on the unsuitability of remaining on the frontier. Van Doorn's happiness would be most exceptional. (See problems listed below.)

 

1.3 frocked coat

 

Walker/Nathan. Their trousers met the tails of their jackets/ short jackets and flapping trousers of various lengths, some coming down to the insteps, while others were well above the ankles. Wide belt and suspenders.

 

1.4 last of the trekboers

 

As explained in last chapter, this is incorrect: the trekboer movement was to continue into this century. At this period, there were many trekboers, especially in the northern regions of Graaff-Trekboers, by Samuel Daniell from de.wikipedia.orgReinet district, where the Van Doorns live. The trekboer phenomena and the Great Trek were parallel – both complimentary and apart from each other. For instance, there were by this time numbers of trekboers 'settled' – i.e. using pastures – across the Orange River in the Griqua/Bushman/Basuto lands. Many of these did not join the trek and continued to regard themselves as subjects of the colony.

 

1.5 the old wandering days of the Boers were past

 

As above, no. It was the whole concept of wandering, nomadism, of easy land acquisition that was to play such an important role in the Great Trek. It was not simply a 'wanderlust' but a way of life, inbred over generations.

 

1.6 What Tjaart had done was accumulate much pasturage beyond the hills

 

This contradicts one of the basic reasons for the trek – if not the reason: land shortage. Some pointers to the background:

 

Little land had been granted since 1807 when the government was giving consideration to a new system of tenure: loan-place to quit-rent etc.”

 

In 1813 Cradock said that he had at least 3,000 petitions for land.

 

In 1824 there were over 1,000 petitions for land in the Graaff Reinet district, by the end of that year only 140,352 morgen had been Graaff Reinet c 1870 William Row from www.graaffreinet.co.zagranted in the district.

 

In Graaff Reinet by the end of 1822, of 392 convertible loan farms 56 had been converted, and a further 301 applications were on file. As their petitions for new land were not dealt with until the titles of converted loan farms had been issued, and as few Boers had titles for their converted loan farms, they were unable legally to occupy new land. There arose 'request' places: land for which petitions had been submitted to the government, with the approval of the landrost, who often registered the claim in his books, although the government condemned the practice. In Graaff Reinet in 1824, there were at least 1,000 request places. (It is interesting to note that of the 19 men from the rural areas of the district who were reported to have joined the Great Trek by early 1837, 15 were described as having no fixed place of residence.)

 

By 1836, only 706 conversions on loan farms had been made which meant that there were still 1500 loan farms dating back to before 1813.

 

Meanwhile in 1832 the government, under orders from the Colonial Office, announced that all land applied for after 9 January 1832 would be sold only by public auction. Several historians emphasize this ‘auction' decision in grievance list. There is much more material available to show the tremendous pressure that had arisen in the area of land usage/availability. Thus when d'Urban annexed ‘Queen Adelaide Province,' the move was greatly welcomed by hundreds of land-hungry Boers who, at last, saw an advance of the frontier and the possibility of new farms. There are records of two, three Boer families at this time being 'forced' to exist on what their forefathers would've regarded as one unit i.e. 6,000 morgen. [approx 12,000 acres.]

 

The pressure on land had been aggravated by their family system. Though the Van Doorns don't typify it, it's a fact that families of a dozen children were the rule rather than the exception. When a son reached his age of independence, having by that time acquired his own horse, gun and small herd, it was traditional that he set his eyes to the east, to a loan place of his own and there establish his family till the same diffusion process started. (Of course, one sees an identical parallel in what was happening on the other side of the border with the young Xhosa herdsman who set out to establish his own kraal.) Now that the black barrier had stopped such an easy 'inheritance', and that people knew that to the immediate north lay the semi-Karoo and Karoo, there was bound to be a land shortage increased by the hour as Boer babies were born. In contrast to America, the whole impetus up to this generation was 'Go East!' – and thousands had.

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